I have a couple articles that I have been planning to publish online, on sites for scholars and university professors. I had been thinking about publishing one of them tonight. But I am here, instead, reading old posts.
But that is a good thing, because the writing on this blog is giving me confidence. I don't know if the latest article is good or not. I just finished it and I can't comprehend it clearly. It's too fresh, and I'm buried too deep in it. But by going back and re-reading the posts here, I get a sense that my writing is where I want it to be. So my new article must measure up to my demands for myself. It is probably just as good as the posts here are.
Well, there's nothing profound about seeing the value in looking at old work. I've always thought it is a good idea to turn canvases to the wall, or squirrel drawings away in portfolios and dresser drawers. Given a month or more, one can see them fresh, almost with the eyes of a brand-new viewer, if only for a few seconds.
My mother has given me an old, framed woodblock print. A week or so ago, I hung something in it's place above her kitchen bins and took the print to hang in my room. My brother-in-law noted something about it and so I started looking at it again. It's all about something different, now. It's not about the process or what I struggled with. In a way, it's more about the subject than ever before. The subject is a little barn for a couple goats. The goats aren't in the picture. Back when I made it, it was more about the print than the barn. But now I remember the barn.
But even when I look at the print, I see everything. It is so easy to look at and everything is readable. I no longer (and this took a long time) feel that there are failures here and there in the piece. Everything is just right. My brother-in-law says there is sophistication that I probably don't even notice. But now I am looking for it--to see if I can tell what it is that he sees.
So, looking over these old posts is good. I see that I was right about some things that, in the time that has passed since writing them, have unfolded before me in the ways that I had predicted they would. I see that I was not unreasonable in my assessments of the world of art. And I see that I do, after all, know how to construct a paragraph and a sentence. Or even a well-placed fragment.
